If we gave them a list of keywords such as "amazing," "opportunity," "cash" and "enlargement," do you think they could go ahead and filter out all the spam while they're at it? A lot of that comes from India anyway, and they'd be killing two birds with one Carnivore.
MODERATOR by Tsar
(To the tune of "Operator" by Jim Croce)
Moderator, well, could you help mod up this post
See, the number of my karma is ten below now
I used to troll away
Now I'm bitch-slapped every day
I wish you guys would log off and just go home now
{Refrain}
But, isn't that the way Slashdot goes
But just forget my past
And mod this one comment if you can find it
So folks can read it and know that I'll climb to the cap
And overcome the slap
I've learned to read the polls
I only wish you guys couldn't see my trolls
'Til my thoughts have congealed
'Cause there's no court of appeals
Moderator, well, could you help mod up this post
Now it's scored so low that it's just infernal
There's something on my screen
You know I never think to clean
I might as well be posting this in my journal
{Refrain}
No, no, no, no, there's no court of appeals
Moderator, let's just forget about this post
There's no one out there who really wanted to read it
Crawl back in your pod
You guys should really just thank God
I can't meta-mod
Steve Mann's site doesn't even mention misuse of dressing-room video. His only mention of anything similar is in a spiel for his "art exhibit" which included a mocked-up anthrax decontamination facility, which he apparently thought would be an ideal place for getting lots of pr0n video. As such, my response was to his site and stated purpose, not to yours, no matter how noble yours might be.
When you say "department stores need cameras to protect their stock - but they need to do it in an accountable way," do you mean that if they misuse the video, they should be subject to lawsuits? Or are you saying that they should have a CorpWatch representative overseeing all videotape loading, unloading, and archiving? Does the corner 7/11 store need to hire one as well, since they have a camera behind the register? Where do you want to go with this?
"What recourse does the victim have?" The same recourse that they would have if a peeping tom videotaped them at home and posted mpeg's on the Internet—except that in the store's case, it would be much easire to prove liability, and to get a lucrative settlement. Which is why stores are very careful with such tapes, and only show them in the executive breakroom, where they belong.
"I posted anonymously because I don't have a login ID for slashdot, and I can't be bothered to get one." Yet you have the time to post anonymously ad nauseum? I'm simply dumbfounded by this statement.
That's good, because he's just harassing salespeople from the looks of things.
1) Why exactly don't they want me videotaping them, but they can videotape me?
Because it's their store, and they're responsible to the owner to make sure that, though anyone can come in and freely handle millions of dollars' worth of goods that doesn't (yet) belong to them, the employees won't let too much of it walk out unpaid for. Just because someone works in a place that uses video security doesn't mean they want, or deserve, to see themselves on a 'gotcha!' website.
And conversely, if this fellow posts his videotape of Sears employees, does that make it okay for Sears employees to post whatever tape they have of him, or of any of us?
2) In what other ways am I being watched/monitored/tracked? Should I care? (GPS enabled cell phones, anyone? M$Passport anyone?)
He could make a better case for this by attacking these issues directly, rather than claiming that storecams are akin to terrorism. Now more than ever, that sort of rhetoric will lose credibility for his 'cause' quicker than anything.
3) How much is enough rights to give up for the sake of security?
Store cameras aren't about giving up rights, any more than my home security system limits your freedom of movement. If you don't want to go in, just don't go in. Our society is free to bankrupt companies with unpopular business practices simply by denying them our trade. Simple, isn't it? But before you ask how we get everyone to boycott Wal-Mart, let me suggest that nobody really cares that they're videotaping. In December 2001, it's just not that big an issue.
Someday we may have to accept the fact that if nobody else seems concerned about our cause, it may indicate that our cause is only important to us, and not that everyone else is an idiot.
Yes, you can get a limited view (10 or so) of a room through the distal end of a peephole, but it is essentially a one-way device.
In a similar manner, you can see through a one-way mirror by reducing ambient light as much as possible and placing a high-powered light flush against the surface of the mirror. See, if the guy at wearcam.org had constructed such a setup, with a rubber-gasketed camera and flash which he used to take pictures of the folk watching us in department-store dressing rooms, and filled a website with those photos (preferably alongside statements, denials, and changes of policy from the stores in question), then he'd be performing what would arguably be a public service.
As it is, he's filming camera domes as if they were UFO's and salespeople as if they were MIB's. For all his bravado, he isn't coming close to anything like a controversy.
Is this how I'm supposed to burn karma?
Re: Missed the point? I don't think I did.
on
World Sousveillance Day
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
You post the question "Where's the accountability?" — anonymously?
Did you see the Sousveillance video? He's not doing exposés of concealed cameras in dressing rooms; he's strolling through department stores, asking employees idiotic questions about the "mysterious dark domes" in the ceiling as if they were part some massive coverup, and none of the poor idiots (non-University of Toronto CE students) around him were totally unaware that they were being watched in a department store. It inspires no social change (except perhaps more stores banning video cameras), and has no effect outside of feeding his overinflated ego. This is nothing more than stupid camera tricks posing as citizen activism.
While we're on the subject, let's throw it out to the group—how would you like this guy to walk into your employer's business and start following you around with a camcorder? "Why do I have to have a password to use one of these computers? What are those weird white boxes with red lights in the corners of the ceiling? Why is the server room locked? Why did you call the police?" Seems pretty juvenile when you think about it.
I think wearcam.org should send someone down the street knocking on people's doors, asking why their peepholes only work one way.
Come on, guys. It's simple economics. If a store wants to reduce losses due to theft, they install cameras. Or they install domes that look like cameras. If you're going to be insulted about that, why aren't you insulted that you can't leave without going through the registers, or that they lock the door after hours, or that the "Employees Only" areas are only for employees? Why not require retailers to move their entire stock outside under a large awning, and turn their backs to us to show how much they trust their customers?
Come on, dude, you're living in a paranoiac techno-Robin-Hood fantasy that would have been only moderately tolerated even before 9/11. Now, your implication that the security guys in Wal-Mart are worse than the terrorists who blew up WTC, makes your opinion worth less than sludge.
Turns out that this was all a lie by the Justice Dept...
Why is it that, when it's the Government's word versus some cracker's, everyone always wants to believe the cracker? Doesn't the Justice Department have a lot more to lose by lying about this?
And if we really think our own government is so evil, why are we still here?
Why is everyone so up-in-arms? The broadband providers are going out of business, folks! They aren't growing money on network trees, they're going bust building infrastructure! Maybe someday we'll all have 100-megabit constant connections to the Internet for a dollar a month, but even then, a dozen Napster clients will be more expensive to serve than a thousand casual browsers. As a matter of fact, I'd wager that full-pipe users represent a net loss to most broadband providers.
That's why they don't want Napster clones to be popular, because they can't afford them. Maybe when Napster users are willing to pay $150 a month for high-cap service, they'll be profitable, but come on. If Napsterites would be willing to do that, wouldn't they be buying the music in the first place?
Sorry, folks, but you're all out of college now, and broadband is expensive in the real world, especially if you want the whole, big, fat pipe all to yourself.
Don't be ashamed; that happens to a lot of folks, especially geeks who've been getting free broadband through their educational institution for four (six, ten..) years, and are somewhat scared of a world where they've heard that some folk still use dialup.
Your idea has merit, though... if it were me, I'd model it as a 'halfway house' for recent grads who aren't quite 'equipped' to make it 'out there' just yet. It would be somewhat similar to a YMCA, except without the fitness opportunities. You could call it the 'Y' Adapter, and you'd probably fill up all your cells in no time.
Amenities could include communal laundries, in-house cafeteria, and a 30-terabyte KaZaa! mirror in the basement. You could offer regular field trips to local social establishments and real apartment communities, as well as social counseling and maybe dance classes.
Oh, and after you've been there a month, you lose network connectivity between 4 and 6 AM. After two months, no connection between 2 and 6 AM. You lose one more hour per month until after 6 months, you can't get on the 'net after dark. This would offer an excellent incentive for finding your own place, negotiating your own broadband connection, and starting a real life on your own.
The problem I see with this is that all your information can be retrieved by a variety of unauthorized (or undesired) folk without your knowledge.
How about adding a couple of things to the human version of this technology:
Notification. include an external circuit—perhaps electrodes at each end of the chip capsule—which would emit a mild electric shock to the wearer whenever the chip was 'read.'
Controllability. Provide a handheld device with each ID chip which would transmit a locking/unlocking signal to the chip. When locked, the chip would be rendered incapable of transmitting identifying information (similar to the Pentium III CPUID switch).
Information Scaling. Let the wearer use the same handheld device to control the type and amount of information retrievable from the chip. For example, on a shopping trip, the user may allow only demographic information to be read, on the condition that stores and malls which read the info will give some small discount on purchases in return for the information.
If I were guaranteed this level of control, and the control was personally verifiable, I'd have no problem having such a device implanted.
Here's the picture! But is this any different...
on
Linux PDA Part Deux
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
From simply running Linux/DA on a Palm V or Vx?
This page has good pix and stats for the PowerPlay V, though they're all CG. So does this thing really exist, and if so, why? Why not simply load Linux DA O/S for Palm onto a Palm Vx and get all the benefits of a Linux palmtop, including Windows-only desktop synchronization?
Don't get me wrong—this all looks interesting, but if it's going to be based on cloned last-generation-Palm hardware, and it won't work with a Linux desktop, why is it important or appealing to anyone?
Is a 6ft-deep pothole in front of your car "news?"
on
Clever New Windows Worm
·
· Score: 5, Funny
For us Windows users, reports of new security issues seem to come as often as potholes on an Arkansas highway. Like the potholes, looking for the next one isn't all that interesting or entertaining, but we still have to try to avoid them or at least minimize their impact.
"Net access: $20/mo. -- Electricity for computer: $20/mo. -- Reaching the 50 Karma cap: Priceless"
I'm at the karma cap, and I've been oscillating between 47 and 50 for some time. Does anyone else in that situation agree with my Modest Karma Proposal?
In ten years, if I can have a 1-cm resolution 3D map of my city, which will overlay on my HUD-equipped Oakleys and provide interactivity with any object in my visual environment, and that database requires a 500GB solid state 3D-memory device, then that's what I'm going to want. Learn from history: If you build it, the applications will come.
I once heard a story (may be an urban legend—anybody have good data?) that Bill Gates once visited Intel's offices and that while he and Andy Grove strolled about the facility, Grove mentioned that it was difficult to imagine a widespread consumer market for the blazingly fast CPUs on the far right of Intel's roadmap. According to the story, Gates replied with something like, "Don't worry; continue to develop and market faster chips, and we will continue to develop and market innovative and compelling software that will bring it to its knees." I'd wager that the same goes for memory technology.
"Using a 3-D fabrication method that deposits layers of circuits with a modified CMOS process, the technique can yield nine to 10 times the amount of chips per a given wafer, providing a cost advantage over traditional flash memory, according to Matrix..."
So we could see a CDROM-capacity write-once "consumable memory" chip that was the same size as a 64MB chip now. Nice, but the article later says:
"The company said it sees no limit to the number of layers that could be added to a device."
How does that jive with the earlier stated scalability of 9-10x?
"'If they can really do this and produce working devices, it is very hot,' said Richard Wawrzyniak, an analyst at Semico Research (Phoenix)."
Oh, so heat is the limiting factor! <g> Seriously, though, I agree with his assessment—having the devices actually work would greatly contribute to their coolness factor.
...at least as far as I know, is that it's hard to program for. However, a quick survey of my friends who've bought PS2's indicates that very few of them are actually programming on theirs. Looks like shrinkwrapped software is the order of the day. <g>
Actually, it's the low-level programming that makes coding for the PS2 an order of magnitude more complex than the other boxes--but that also opens up at least an order of magnitude more potential, as any code hacker knows. The question of "which box should we target?" is usually answered with a simple number, and it looks like PS2 has a lock on that for the forseeable future.
A 500MHz Crusoe CPU with 256MB is probably fine for most applications, guys, but trying to run the Slashdot site off one for an hour and a half was, I think, a case of foolish geek bravado.
In a parallel breakthrough sure to rock the physics world to its very foundations, Tsar has created a mini black hole in his ISAC (Incredibly Stinky, Ancient Cubicle), causing light to bend uniformly around a point approximately six inches above his desk. The feat was accomplished by using a sample of very pure silicon-based substance called "glass", which was ground and shaped to form what is, in effect, a solid "lens".
Ultraviolet light generated by an ionized gas was then used to excite a flourescent coating on the interior of a nearby cylinder, creating visible light which was reflected by the surface of a technical document placed precisely in its path. The light was then directed through the "lens" to produce the light-bending effect commonly seen only around supermassive objects such as black holes and galactic superclusters.
Tsar's next ambitious project is to create a miniature expanding multiverse by blowing up several balloons for a staff New Year's party, the expense of which will likely be covered by the piles of grant money expected due to the unqualified success of the LENS experiment.
Disclaimer: I'm all all for the advancement of science, but why do we have to use hyperbole to make it seem interesting, or valuable? Maybe if everyone stopped claiming to have created supernovae or black holes or the core of a star or the moment of creation, we could get to a point where dull, devoted, brilliant researchers who didn't minor in drama can still get funding for their worthy efforts. (This is not a plug—I'm not a researcher, and I'm vastly overpaid as it is.)
...in which the hirsute denizens of Walden Pond were contemplating possible Republican strategies for reducing teen pregnancies. My favorite: Mike's suggestion of a fleet of megaphone-equipped vans roaming suburban streets during the evening hours, blaring "CUT THAT OUT!" every few seconds.
On a decidedly on-topic note, though, imaging all 9,629,091 sq km (according to the CIA World Factbook 2001) of the USA at 61-cm resolution in 24-bit color would result in 77.6 terabytes of data. That's for one frame; at a rate 1 frame per second, that would be 6.7 exabytes per day. Ask the Almighty to provide you with a 10,000-to-one compression algorithm, and you could get a day's worth of data down under a petabyte.
The review doesn't mention how the Audigy works under any open source operating systems, though.
If you're interested in helping Creative develop open source drivers for the Audigy, go to their Open Source Page. Get the emu10k1 source and thumb through the mailing list archive to find out how to get the Audigy branch of the tree.
Don't do heavy wizardry? They also need lab rats for the drivers they're building, so sign up.
The ion drive aboard the DS1 broke several records with its stellar (literally) tortiose-vs-hare performance. Does anyone know if this technology has any potential for being adapted to the ISS? Due to friction with the upper atmosphere, ISS is constantly losing altitude, necessitating frequent boosts using the Shuttle or a Progress vehicle to keep it on station (pardon the weak pun). A constantly-updated graph of its altitude variations is hosted on Heavens-Above.
Anyway, does anyone know if ion engines of the type used on DS1 would be effective in allowing the ISS to maintain altitude, or could they at least reduce its rate of orbital decay enough to justify the power expenditure?
Created on..............: Wed, Jul 11, 2001
Expires on..............: Thu, Jul 11, 2002
Record last updated on..: Sun, Dec 09, 2001
Administrative Contact:
Red Hook Partners
F. Mark Modzelewski
334 Old Route 212
Saugerties, NY 12477
US
Phone: 845-247-0115
Email: fmmodzelewski@yahoo.com
Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
Register.Com
Domain Registrar
575 8th Avenue - 11th Floor
New York, NY 10018
US
Phone: 212-798-9200
Fax..: 212-629-9305
Email: domain-registrar@register.com
Their technical contact is still Register.com, their administrative contact is a Yahoo.com address, they're hosted on Hostway (service starts at $17.95 a month for Windows hosting, and they're using Frontpage), they registered their domain in July and they only paid for one year! How nearsighted are these people, and is theirs the star to which we want to hitch our nanowagon?
Note: I have a low-rent hosting service too, but then again, I'm not lobbying Congress.
Slashdot Mirror
If we gave them a list of keywords such as "amazing," "opportunity," "cash" and "enlargement," do you think they could go ahead and filter out all the spam while they're at it? A lot of that comes from India anyway, and they'd be killing two birds with one Carnivore.
MODERATOR by Tsar
(To the tune of "Operator" by Jim Croce)
Moderator, well, could you help mod up this post
See, the number of my karma is ten below now
I used to troll away
Now I'm bitch-slapped every day
I wish you guys would log off and just go home now
{Refrain}
But, isn't that the way Slashdot goes
But just forget my past
And mod this one comment if you can find it
So folks can read it and know that I'll climb to the cap
And overcome the slap
I've learned to read the polls
I only wish you guys couldn't see my trolls
'Til my thoughts have congealed
'Cause there's no court of appeals
Moderator, well, could you help mod up this post
Now it's scored so low that it's just infernal
There's something on my screen
You know I never think to clean
I might as well be posting this in my journal
{Refrain}
No, no, no, no, there's no court of appeals
Moderator, let's just forget about this post
There's no one out there who really wanted to read it
Crawl back in your pod
You guys should really just thank God
I can't meta-mod
{Refrain}
I checked the downloads page and found a Windows download for QMTest 1.0. Can't wait to try it out.
Steve Mann's site doesn't even mention misuse of dressing-room video. His only mention of anything similar is in a spiel for his "art exhibit" which included a mocked-up anthrax decontamination facility, which he apparently thought would be an ideal place for getting lots of pr0n video. As such, my response was to his site and stated purpose, not to yours, no matter how noble yours might be.
When you say "department stores need cameras to protect their stock - but they need to do it in an accountable way," do you mean that if they misuse the video, they should be subject to lawsuits? Or are you saying that they should have a CorpWatch representative overseeing all videotape loading, unloading, and archiving? Does the corner 7/11 store need to hire one as well, since they have a camera behind the register? Where do you want to go with this?
"What recourse does the victim have?" The same recourse that they would have if a peeping tom videotaped them at home and posted mpeg's on the Internet—except that in the store's case, it would be much easire to prove liability, and to get a lucrative settlement. Which is why stores are very careful with such tapes, and only show them in the executive breakroom, where they belong.
"I posted anonymously because I don't have a login ID for slashdot, and I can't be bothered to get one." Yet you have the time to post anonymously ad nauseum? I'm simply dumbfounded by this statement.
Go in peace, my child.
It's not about harassing Wal-Mart guards,
That's good, because he's just harassing salespeople from the looks of things.
1) Why exactly don't they want me videotaping them, but they can videotape me?
Because it's their store, and they're responsible to the owner to make sure that, though anyone can come in and freely handle millions of dollars' worth of goods that doesn't (yet) belong to them, the employees won't let too much of it walk out unpaid for. Just because someone works in a place that uses video security doesn't mean they want, or deserve, to see themselves on a 'gotcha!' website.
And conversely, if this fellow posts his videotape of Sears employees, does that make it okay for Sears employees to post whatever tape they have of him, or of any of us?
2) In what other ways am I being watched/monitored/tracked? Should I care? (GPS enabled cell phones, anyone? M$Passport anyone?)
He could make a better case for this by attacking these issues directly, rather than claiming that storecams are akin to terrorism. Now more than ever, that sort of rhetoric will lose credibility for his 'cause' quicker than anything.
3) How much is enough rights to give up for the sake of security?
Store cameras aren't about giving up rights, any more than my home security system limits your freedom of movement. If you don't want to go in, just don't go in. Our society is free to bankrupt companies with unpopular business practices simply by denying them our trade. Simple, isn't it? But before you ask how we get everyone to boycott Wal-Mart, let me suggest that nobody really cares that they're videotaping. In December 2001, it's just not that big an issue.
Someday we may have to accept the fact that if nobody else seems concerned about our cause, it may indicate that our cause is only important to us, and not that everyone else is an idiot.
Yes, you can get a limited view (10 or so) of a room through the distal end of a peephole, but it is essentially a one-way device.
In a similar manner, you can see through a one-way mirror by reducing ambient light as much as possible and placing a high-powered light flush against the surface of the mirror. See, if the guy at wearcam.org had constructed such a setup, with a rubber-gasketed camera and flash which he used to take pictures of the folk watching us in department-store dressing rooms, and filled a website with those photos (preferably alongside statements, denials, and changes of policy from the stores in question), then he'd be performing what would arguably be a public service.
As it is, he's filming camera domes as if they were UFO's and salespeople as if they were MIB's. For all his bravado, he isn't coming close to anything like a controversy.
Is this how I'm supposed to burn karma?
You post the question "Where's the accountability?" — anonymously?
Did you see the Sousveillance video? He's not doing exposés of concealed cameras in dressing rooms; he's strolling through department stores, asking employees idiotic questions about the "mysterious dark domes" in the ceiling as if they were part some massive coverup, and none of the poor idiots (non-University of Toronto CE students) around him were totally unaware that they were being watched in a department store. It inspires no social change (except perhaps more stores banning video cameras), and has no effect outside of feeding his overinflated ego. This is nothing more than stupid camera tricks posing as citizen activism.
While we're on the subject, let's throw it out to the group—how would you like this guy to walk into your employer's business and start following you around with a camcorder? "Why do I have to have a password to use one of these computers? What are those weird white boxes with red lights in the corners of the ceiling? Why is the server room locked? Why did you call the police?" Seems pretty juvenile when you think about it.
I think wearcam.org should send someone down the street knocking on people's doors, asking why their peepholes only work one way.
Come on, guys. It's simple economics. If a store wants to reduce losses due to theft, they install cameras. Or they install domes that look like cameras. If you're going to be insulted about that, why aren't you insulted that you can't leave without going through the registers, or that they lock the door after hours, or that the "Employees Only" areas are only for employees? Why not require retailers to move their entire stock outside under a large awning, and turn their backs to us to show how much they trust their customers?
Come on, dude, you're living in a paranoiac techno-Robin-Hood fantasy that would have been only moderately tolerated even before 9/11. Now, your implication that the security guys in Wal-Mart are worse than the terrorists who blew up WTC, makes your opinion worth less than sludge.
Turns out that this was all a lie by the Justice Dept...
Why is it that, when it's the Government's word versus some cracker's, everyone always wants to believe the cracker? Doesn't the Justice Department have a lot more to lose by lying about this?
And if we really think our own government is so evil, why are we still here?
Why is everyone so up-in-arms? The broadband providers are going out of business, folks! They aren't growing money on network trees, they're going bust building infrastructure! Maybe someday we'll all have 100-megabit constant connections to the Internet for a dollar a month, but even then, a dozen Napster clients will be more expensive to serve than a thousand casual browsers. As a matter of fact, I'd wager that full-pipe users represent a net loss to most broadband providers.
That's why they don't want Napster clones to be popular, because they can't afford them. Maybe when Napster users are willing to pay $150 a month for high-cap service, they'll be profitable, but come on. If Napsterites would be willing to do that, wouldn't they be buying the music in the first place?
Sorry, folks, but you're all out of college now, and broadband is expensive in the real world, especially if you want the whole, big, fat pipe all to yourself.
Don't be ashamed; that happens to a lot of folks, especially geeks who've been getting free broadband through their educational institution for four (six, ten..) years, and are somewhat scared of a world where they've heard that some folk still use dialup.
Your idea has merit, though... if it were me, I'd model it as a 'halfway house' for recent grads who aren't quite 'equipped' to make it 'out there' just yet. It would be somewhat similar to a YMCA, except without the fitness opportunities. You could call it the 'Y' Adapter, and you'd probably fill up all your cells in no time.
Amenities could include communal laundries, in-house cafeteria, and a 30-terabyte KaZaa! mirror in the basement. You could offer regular field trips to local social establishments and real apartment communities, as well as social counseling and maybe dance classes.
Oh, and after you've been there a month, you lose network connectivity between 4 and 6 AM. After two months, no connection between 2 and 6 AM. You lose one more hour per month until after 6 months, you can't get on the 'net after dark. This would offer an excellent incentive for finding your own place, negotiating your own broadband connection, and starting a real life on your own.
How about adding a couple of things to the human version of this technology:
- Notification. include an external circuit—perhaps electrodes at each end of the chip capsule—which would emit a mild electric shock to the wearer whenever the chip was 'read.'
- Controllability. Provide a handheld device with each ID chip which would transmit a locking/unlocking signal to the chip. When locked, the chip would be rendered incapable of transmitting identifying information (similar to the Pentium III CPUID switch).
- Information Scaling. Let the wearer use the same handheld device to control the type and amount of information retrievable from the chip. For example, on a shopping trip, the user may allow only demographic information to be read, on the condition that stores and malls which read the info will give some small discount on purchases in return for the information.
If I were guaranteed this level of control, and the control was personally verifiable, I'd have no problem having such a device implanted.From simply running Linux/DA on a Palm V or Vx?
This page has good pix and stats for the PowerPlay V, though they're all CG. So does this thing really exist, and if so, why? Why not simply load Linux DA O/S for Palm onto a Palm Vx and get all the benefits of a Linux palmtop, including Windows-only desktop synchronization?
Don't get me wrong—this all looks interesting, but if it's going to be based on cloned last-generation-Palm hardware, and it won't work with a Linux desktop, why is it important or appealing to anyone?
For us Windows users, reports of new security issues seem to come as often as potholes on an Arkansas highway. Like the potholes, looking for the next one isn't all that interesting or entertaining, but we still have to try to avoid them or at least minimize their impact.
"Net access: $20/mo. -- Electricity for computer: $20/mo. -- Reaching the 50 Karma cap: Priceless"
I'm at the karma cap, and I've been oscillating between 47 and 50 for some time. Does anyone else in that situation agree with my Modest Karma Proposal?
In ten years, if I can have a 1-cm resolution 3D map of my city, which will overlay on my HUD-equipped Oakleys and provide interactivity with any object in my visual environment, and that database requires a 500GB solid state 3D-memory device, then that's what I'm going to want. Learn from history: If you build it, the applications will come.
I once heard a story (may be an urban legend—anybody have good data?) that Bill Gates once visited Intel's offices and that while he and Andy Grove strolled about the facility, Grove mentioned that it was difficult to imagine a widespread consumer market for the blazingly fast CPUs on the far right of Intel's roadmap. According to the story, Gates replied with something like, "Don't worry; continue to develop and market faster chips, and we will continue to develop and market innovative and compelling software that will bring it to its knees." I'd wager that the same goes for memory technology.
"Using a 3-D fabrication method that deposits layers of circuits with a modified CMOS process, the technique can yield nine to 10 times the amount of chips per a given wafer, providing a cost advantage over traditional flash memory, according to Matrix..."
So we could see a CDROM-capacity write-once "consumable memory" chip that was the same size as a 64MB chip now. Nice, but the article later says:
"The company said it sees no limit to the number of layers that could be added to a device."
How does that jive with the earlier stated scalability of 9-10x?
"'If they can really do this and produce working devices, it is very hot,' said Richard Wawrzyniak, an analyst at Semico Research (Phoenix)."
Oh, so heat is the limiting factor! <g> Seriously, though, I agree with his assessment—having the devices actually work would greatly contribute to their coolness factor.
...Earthlink finds out that one of our astronauts is illegally sharing his wireless access with everyone in LEO.
...at least as far as I know, is that it's hard to program for. However, a quick survey of my friends who've bought PS2's indicates that very few of them are actually programming on theirs. Looks like shrinkwrapped software is the order of the day. <g>
Actually, it's the low-level programming that makes coding for the PS2 an order of magnitude more complex than the other boxes--but that also opens up at least an order of magnitude more potential, as any code hacker knows. The question of "which box should we target?" is usually answered with a simple number, and it looks like PS2 has a lock on that for the forseeable future.
A 500MHz Crusoe CPU with 256MB is probably fine for most applications, guys, but trying to run the Slashdot site off one for an hour and a half was, I think, a case of foolish geek bravado.
So, does anyone know what happened?
In a parallel breakthrough sure to rock the physics world to its very foundations, Tsar has created a mini black hole in his ISAC (Incredibly Stinky, Ancient Cubicle), causing light to bend uniformly around a point approximately six inches above his desk. The feat was accomplished by using a sample of very pure silicon-based substance called "glass", which was ground and shaped to form what is, in effect, a solid "lens".
Ultraviolet light generated by an ionized gas was then used to excite a flourescent coating on the interior of a nearby cylinder, creating visible light which was reflected by the surface of a technical document placed precisely in its path. The light was then directed through the "lens" to produce the light-bending effect commonly seen only around supermassive objects such as black holes and galactic superclusters.
Tsar's next ambitious project is to create a miniature expanding multiverse by blowing up several balloons for a staff New Year's party, the expense of which will likely be covered by the piles of grant money expected due to the unqualified success of the LENS experiment.
Disclaimer: I'm all all for the advancement of science, but why do we have to use hyperbole to make it seem interesting, or valuable? Maybe if everyone stopped claiming to have created supernovae or black holes or the core of a star or the moment of creation, we could get to a point where dull, devoted, brilliant researchers who didn't minor in drama can still get funding for their worthy efforts. (This is not a plug—I'm not a researcher, and I'm vastly overpaid as it is.)
...in which the hirsute denizens of Walden Pond were contemplating possible Republican strategies for reducing teen pregnancies. My favorite: Mike's suggestion of a fleet of megaphone-equipped vans roaming suburban streets during the evening hours, blaring "CUT THAT OUT!" every few seconds.
On a decidedly on-topic note, though, imaging all 9,629,091 sq km (according to the CIA World Factbook 2001) of the USA at 61-cm resolution in 24-bit color would result in 77.6 terabytes of data. That's for one frame; at a rate 1 frame per second, that would be 6.7 exabytes per day. Ask the Almighty to provide you with a 10,000-to-one compression algorithm, and you could get a day's worth of data down under a petabyte.
Let's see Jon Voight find Will Smith in that.
Looks like they'd be handing themselves out to dry every time they bypass a copyrighted game's system for acquiring health, weapons, points, etc.
Remember, if we use cheat codes to make our games easier, then the terrorists win.
The review doesn't mention how the Audigy works under any open source operating systems, though.
If you're interested in helping Creative develop open source drivers for the Audigy, go to their Open Source Page. Get the emu10k1 source and thumb through the mailing list archive to find out how to get the Audigy branch of the tree.
Don't do heavy wizardry? They also need lab rats for the drivers they're building, so sign up.
The ion drive aboard the DS1 broke several records with its stellar (literally) tortiose-vs-hare performance. Does anyone know if this technology has any potential for being adapted to the ISS? Due to friction with the upper atmosphere, ISS is constantly losing altitude, necessitating frequent boosts using the Shuttle or a Progress vehicle to keep it on station (pardon the weak pun). A constantly-updated graph of its altitude variations is hosted on Heavens-Above.
Anyway, does anyone know if ion engines of the type used on DS1 would be effective in allowing the ISS to maintain altitude, or could they at least reduce its rate of orbital decay enough to justify the power expenditure?
...for NanoBusiness Alliance?
Organization:
Red Hook Partners
F. Mark Modzelewski
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US
Phone: 845-247-0115
Email: fmmodzelewski@yahoo.com
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Domain Name: NANOBUSINESS.ORG
Created on..............: Wed, Jul 11, 2001
Expires on..............: Thu, Jul 11, 2002
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Administrative Contact:
Red Hook Partners
F. Mark Modzelewski
334 Old Route 212
Saugerties, NY 12477
US
Phone: 845-247-0115
Email: fmmodzelewski@yahoo.com
Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
Register.Com
Domain Registrar
575 8th Avenue - 11th Floor
New York, NY 10018
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Phone: 212-798-9200
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Their technical contact is still Register.com, their administrative contact is a Yahoo.com address, they're hosted on Hostway (service starts at $17.95 a month for Windows hosting, and they're using Frontpage), they registered their domain in July and they only paid for one year ! How nearsighted are these people, and is theirs the star to which we want to hitch our nanowagon?
Note: I have a low-rent hosting service too, but then again, I'm not lobbying Congress.